Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Pictures At An Exhibition Part 1

In 1873, Russian painter Viktor Hartmann died. His friends,
the critic Vladimir Stasov and composter Modest Mussorgsky were shocked and
mourned his death. As a memorial, Stasov arranged an exhibition of Hartmann’s
works at St. Petersburg’s Academy of Fine Arts, and Mussorgsky composed a suite
of tone poems based on the works, a section for each painting. Mussorgsky’s
musical tribute is called Pictures at an Exhibition, and along with his
infamous Night on Bald Mountain and opera Boris Gudnov are the composer’s most
significant works.This isn’t really
relevant, but this is the explanation for the title of this series of short
blogs.

The subject of these posts is on another series of
paintings, one dear to all fans of Chicago’s Field Museum.In 1926, Charles R Knight had already become
famous among natural history enthusiasts. For the past 30 years, he had
painted, drawn, and sculpted a series of iconic art pieces for the American
Museum of Natural History. Any visitor to the museum today will recognize the
influence Knight had on later natural history artists, especially those of
prehistoric animals. Paleoartists today recognize Knight as the genius who
started realistic but evocative art portraying prehistoric animals.

In 1925, the previous year, Knight had worked in Los
Angeles, illustrating a great tableau of the prehistoric tar pits of La Brea
for the museum there. Upon his return to New York, Knight met a friend from the
museum, Dr. George Kunz. Kunz was the mineralogist of the day, vice president of
Tiffany’s, and veteran of many of the World’s Fairs at the turn of the 20th
century. Kunz at the time had been helping the only 3-year-old Field Museum
manage its gem collection with its curator Henry W Nichols, and told Knight
that he was surprised that the Field Museum hadn’t called Knight to illustrate
their new halls of fossils and animals.Knight had earlier been rejected by the Field in the past years and was
hesitant to try again. Kuntz wasn’t going to let him give up, though. He had
formed a plan with Knight’s daughter Lucy to confront the museum. Lucy was
passionate about her father’s abilities and refused to let him retire early and
poorer. She wrote Field and the other trustees indignant letters and even went
to Chicago in person. Humiliated, they acquiesced to hire Knight. Henry Field,
nephew of the Museum’s owner Marshall, was ecstatic. He was an anthropologist
and personally took Knight on a tour of prehistoric caves in France and Spain.

Knight collaborated with Nichols and the museum’s most distinguished
paleontologist Elmer Riggs in the project-28 watercolor murals, 13 of them
25’x9’ and 15 of them 11’x9’ showing scenes of prehistory from before life to
the ice ages.

Today I’m going to start talking about these murals, one by
one. Each is an artistic masterpiece, but I’m going to talk about their
composition,their subject, and their
scientific accuracy. It is my opinion that this museum, the Carnegie, and the
Yale Peabody are the only ones I’ve visited where art effectively complements
the specimens-the depictions of the animals in life next to their fossils
combine to make powerful simulations of the living animals.

The series of
paintings begins with one that has not been on exhibit since 1991. To be fair,
that’s because the museum can’t devote that much room to the earth before life,
and video and other media are more effective at explaining to the public the
origins of life.

The setting is 2 billion years ago. According to Knight and
the museum, life had not yet begun. It was a time of the formation of oceans
and continents-volcanism was still intense as it had been for the past two
billion years, but this time the carbon dioxide and water vapor had condensed
in an atmosphere dense enough to produce torrential rain.

Volcanism is the theme of this mural, an almost
post-apocalyptic landscape. In the foreground, towers of cooling lava glow and
steam as they coil in the moist air. In the center, an early ocean lies
tranquilly. In the background, mountains formed by the tectonic action loom,
one of them still smoking. Tectonic activity, because of its age, has been
associated with the earth’s past. Volcanoes are ubiquitous in art of
prehistory, as I’ve mentioned in many movie reviews, and like Fantasia (no
doubt inspired by Knight’s art) they begin the story.

Life, however, is older. The conclusions made in the 1920s
have been overruled. The museum itself is explicit on the antiquity of life. Microbial
mats have been found to be almost 4 billion years old. Their fossils of their
colonies, stromatolites, date to the eon (about 1 billion years of time) before
the setting of this painting.2 billion
years ago was instead the dawn of eukaryotes, organisms with nuclear cells. All
the life we can see with our naked eye, including ourselves, is
eukaryotes.The eukaryotes would have
been microscopic algae, impossible to see on the painting, and so while the
painting’s original description is inaccurate, the painting itself is still
accurate. Volcanism was still raging, and life was still quite small. No true
animals, plants, or even fungi had evolved.

The painting depicts the quiet, lonely time of earth’s
history. Chemical, biological, and geological forces were in motion, slow but
constant and eternal. These same forces still are at work-the microbial
biosphere is the most quick to evolve, and now covers the earth. The continents
still move-volcanoes and earthquakes still shape the planet’s surface, now
inhabited by the victims of the geological forces.

What this post means to do is the same thing as the
painting- setting the state. Everything needs a beginning, and it’s best of
start as early as possible.

About Me

Hi everyone! You may know me already, but 99% of you won't. I've decided to make a blog for myself. I'm a anthropology student who has returned to his original passion for palaeontology. Ever since I was little, I've been fascinated with the weird and wonderful animals that have inhabited our planet and I've made this blog to keep this in my mind and hopefully in yours. Most people blog about their interests, and while I've got a range of interests-see history and anthropology above, not to mention zoology, astronomy, art, cooking, science fiction and fantasy films and literature, and a myriad of others, the one I want to do for a living is the study of Earth's ancient past.

On this blog I'll review papers, talk about fossils, museums, and taxa, review art, film, literature, and our culture's view of paleontology, and share memories and insights. I've been inspired by the far better blogs of professional palaeontologists, and I'll share them as time goes on. I'm also open to requests and questions of opinions, the latest palaeo news, and discussions with other fans informal and professional.

I think this is going to have fun, and I'm hoping my readers will have just as much fun.

Copyright: All media and print reviewed belongs to the owners and publishers. Likewise, all art used for this blog belongs to their artists. This is a non-profit blog for education and entertainment.